“The United Nations increasingly rely on design thinking to transform their institutions; infrastructural planning is now figured as urban design; and ecological thinking turns into a problem of adequate programming. Our project seeks to investigate how design methods and practices have contributed to changing politics throughout the 20th century and to analyze contemporary forms of governing through design. It is our goal to establish the interdisciplinary study of design as a new field of research in the humanities and to provide an account of how design has since the mid-20th century become increasingly political.
… Governing through Design links perspectives and methods of design studies, urban studies, media studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, and science & technology studies to develop a comprehensive understanding of how politics and design are interrelated today. The project therefore intervenes in contemporary debates about opportunities to act on the effects of the ‘anthropocene’ and seeks to confront global solutions with in-depth studies of local projects and processes.”
